Samstag, 19. Dezember 2015

When David
Cameron made his way to dinner in Brussels on Thursday, he promised to go in “battling
for Britain through the night”. But while his fourth basket,
on restricting migrant benefits, seems to have been killed off, (in its current
form at least), the renegotiation project as a whole seems to be alive and
well. In any case, alternative solutions for the fourth basket are on the
table, and include what Jean-Claude Juncker called an “emergency
brake” to control migrant benefits.

The Prime
Minister came out speaking of the “good progress” that had been made, albeit
with much “hard work” still to do. And crucially, it wasn’t just the British
Prime Minister who was in a positive mood. Council President Donald Tusk told
the press that he was now “much more optimistic” than before that a deal could
be struck, citing “a good atmosphere and goodwill” around the table.

Any progress for the Prime Minister?

The
atmosphere certainly seems to have been a lively one. François Hollande said
that the discussions had been “in diplomatic language, frank”. The Financial
Times reveals that talks were at times heated and
emotional, with Lithuanian President (and karate black belt…) Dalia Grybauskaitė at one point
crying “blackmail!” The paper also reports that, worryingly for Mr Cameron, “more
leaders than expected raised concerns about giving national parliaments a
bigger say over EU legislation”. This is echoed in the BBC’s
summary, where Jean-Claude Juncker is quoted saying: “I’d like to warn you of
the illusory impression that there are three easy questions and [only] one
tricky one”.

It’s not all
doom and gloom for the FT, however. Importantly, Thursday night’s session
succeeded in that it “broke a worrying political deadlock”. It is clear now
that EU leaders are in the mood to work together to avoid Brexit.

The
willingness to work together includes David Cameron himself, as he agreed that
he was against discrimination, thereby all but conceding his fourth basket in
its current form. Jochen Buchsteiner of Germany’s Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung correctly predicted that the Prime Minister would be
going to the summit exhibiting a new “readiness for compromise”, despite his
bellicose rhetoric.

Some gloomy voices on both Right and Left

For Brexit
campaigners and pro-Brexit newspapers in Britain, the dinner was regarded as a
defeat for David Cameron at the hands of an ever-stubborn EU. The Daily
Mail quotes UKIP leader Nigel Farage, saying that the
Prime Minister “came, saw and got hammered”. Mr Cameron will have to back down
on migrant benefits, and the newspaper sees this as a deal-breaker.

In another
article in the same
newspaper, columnist Richard Littlejohn makes it clear that no
deal with the EU would be worth it anyway, and that the summit was “pointless”.
The article compares the seemingly never-ending renegotiation saga with Star
Wars – “May the farce be with you…” -
as does Daily Telegraph cartoonist
Christian Adams.

At the
opposite end of the political spectrum, The
Guardian is similarly downbeat, reporting that Mr Cameron
“faces Brussels deadlock over migrants’ benefits”. The newspaper claims that
other EU leaders said the Prime Minister backtracked on the issue. The Guardian
considers the summit proof that the Prime Minister’s eight-month tour of
European capitals ultimately failed in its aim of building support for his
reform package.

With another
article suggesting that for “many EU leaders [the]
immigration crisis loomed larger than the Brexit question”, it seems as if EU
leaders are either unwilling or uninterested in offering Britain a decent deal.

Merkel throws a lifeline - Socialists not playing ball

The
Times reports that Angela Merkel gave Mr Cameron “a
lifeline over EU reforms”.

While treaty
change will not happen now, the German Chancellor laid out a compromise,
according to the Financial
Times: of a “postdated promise of treaty change, similar to
that afforded to Denmark in 1992”. The FT says that it was Ms Merkel who set
the tone and direction of the early debate.

However,
François Hollande was “leading
the resistance” as Mr Cameron’s fourth basket was “roundly opposed”.
The French President did not help matters after dinner by seeming to reveal to
the press that the Prime Minister is indeed looking to hold the referendum in
summer 2016. (David Cameron has been keen to avoid naming a date).

UK Labour
Party leader Jeremy Corbyn also “twisted the knife, abandoning his party’s
position to side with Hollande” according to The
Times. European Parliament President Martin Schulz did not
seem to be in the mood to do Mr Cameron any favours either, saying
that “David Cameron has to come around to the EU position rather than the other
way around. It’s not like it’s us who invented this referendum”.

The European press strikes a more sympathetic tone

As ever, the
press on the Continent sees the potential for a deal far more readily than its
British counterpart. In France, Le
Monde says that Europe is ready to help David Cameron to
avoid Brexit. It also considers the Prime Minister to have put in a sterling
performance in Brussels. Whereas the FT suggested that his forty-five-minute
exposition speech which “threatened to interrupt” the main course was too long
– “not quite Castro length”, Le Monde says it was perfectly judged: “parfait sur la forme et le style,
brilliant”.

The paper
thinks that Europe’s leaders take the threat of Brexit seriously given the
last six polls on Brexit. These have found that only 51% of UK
voters would vote to remain in the EU. European leaders do not want to see
Brexit happen and will do what they can to prevent it. President Hollande
admits that while he is opposed to a Europe à
la carte, he is willing to see a Europe of “concentric circles”.

Stefan
Kornelius writes in Germany’s Süddeutsche
Zeitung that Mr Cameron’s EU reform proposals are “no longer unfulfillable”.
Brexit would be worse than any other crisis that the EU has faced up to this
point, and as such David Cameron can be hopeful of getting a good deal. There
is also praise for the Cameron government for understanding “the most important
lesson of all” – that the EU only works when all of its members are profiting
from it.

Die
Welt agrees that the EU will have no choice but to offer
Britain “Reformgeschenke”. Although
there is no way that the fourth basket will be accepted, EU leaders will be
aware that they need to give Mr Cameron a reform package that he can sell to
sceptical voters in the UK.

Conclusions

When he set
off for Brussels, David Cameron said that “we’re not pushing for a deal, we’re
pushing for momentum”. Judging by what Donald Tusk and the newspapers in Europe
have had to say, he seems to have succeeded in this. Back home, however, much
of the press is far from convinced - and probably never will be.

This EU
summit has heralded the end of the road for the Prime Minister’s fourth basket,
in its current formulation. But didn’t we know that much already? Much of the
British press, particularly on the Right, sees the death of the fourth basket
as a defeat for the entire renegotiation project. But did Mr Cameron (and his famously
politically astute sidekick George Osborne) ever
seriously believe it would be accepted?

The Prime
Minister is unlikely to be as downbeat as the newspapers back home. If
anything, he will be pleased to see them kicking up such a fuss. The British
public will now be expecting precious little from the all-important February
summit. But with EU leaders desperate to avert a Brexit perhaps he will at
least come away with some things to sell. The four-year benefit ban will not be
part of the package, but perhaps he could secure an “emergency brake”. It has a
rather dramatic ring to it after all…

Mittwoch, 9. Dezember 2015

In
Britain, Brexit has taken a back seat in the month since the Prime Minister
wrote to Donald Tusk outlining his reform proposals. There have been plenty of
other events making the headlines.

There was
the horror of Paris, and the beauty of Wembley, where England fans sang the
Marseillaise.

Parliament’s
debate and subsequent vote in favour of air strikes in Syria dominated last
week's news. The chaotic ‘new politics’ of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party
leadership continued with the hard-Left leader voting against air strikes,
while his Shadow Foreign Secretary, Hilary Benn, and half of his Shadow
Cabinet, voted with David Cameron’s government.

Mr Benn
gave such a stirring
speech in the debate that he won a round of applause
from his fellow MPs – an extremely rare sight in the House of Commons, where clapping is actually banned. Commentators
began speculating whether Mr Benn could challenge Mr Corbyn for the leadership,
but the talk of ‘Hilary 2016’ seems premature.

Recent
days have also seen a storm called Desmond terrorise
the North West of England, Oscar Pistorius convicted of murder and surprise
package Leicester City move top of the Premier League while José Mourinho’s
Chelsea contrive to sit in 14th place.

If you dig
deep enough, however, you can find a reaction to Mr Tusk’s letter, and it is
far from positive about what he had to say.

Newspapers
from across the political spectrum see the letter as a rebuttal for Mr Cameron.
While it is agreed that Mr Tusk made positive noises about three of the four
‘baskets’ for reform, this is considered to matter for very little, because of
what he had to say about the fourth basket - the demand that EU migrants work
in Britain for four years before they can draw certain benefits. Mr Tusk
referred to this reform proposal as ‘the most delicate’ and made it clear that
it would not be acceptable in its current form. The headlines in Britain focus squarely
on this.

For the Independent, Mr
Tusk’s letter signals that David Cameron is ‘set for defeat as leaders reject
his demand to block benefits for EU migrants’, while The Times reports
that ‘Cameron’s EU deal faces collapse over failure to budge on benefits’. The
Times characterises Mr Tusk’s letter as a ‘warning’ to the Prime Minister to
‘back down’ on his plan to stop EU migrants from claiming certain benefits.

The Daily
Telegraph also sees Mr Tusk’s letter as a demand for
the Prime Minister to compromise on this issue: ‘EU’s Donald Tusk tells David
Cameron: No deal over welfare plan’ the
paper says.

The BBC’s
analysis also focuses on the fourth basket, reporting ‘No consensus over UK
welfare reforms’. The setback that Donald Tusk’s letter represents leaves the
UK’s future in the EU ‘in the balance’ according to former Chancellor Alistair
Darling.

‘…all member states and the institutions must
show readiness for compromise’

While most
British newspapers think Mr Tusk is demanding compromise from Mr Cameron, Stephen Booth, co-director
of Open Europe in London suggests
otherwise. In his letter, Mr Tusk does not call on the
UK alone to be willing to compromise,
but ‘all member states’. ‘Reading between the lines’ the tone of the letter
suggests that Mr Tusk is asking other
member states and the EU institutions to be more accommodating towards
Britain’s proposals.

The only
voices making this point in the British press are the broadly pro-EU Guardian and Financial
Times. They say that Mr Tusk is calling on all sides, and not just Britain to be
flexible.

Interestingly,
on the Continent, Germany’s Die Welt argues
that, if anything, it is the EU that
will be flexible, rather than the UK. ‘Jetzt will die EU den Briten ganz
schnell entgegenkommen’ runs the headline. The paper
argues that Mr Tusk’s letter is calling on other EU leaders to send a positive
answer back to London, and quickly.

A ‘staged row’

No matter
what David Cameron says, he is universally expected to back the campaign to remain
in the EU, regardless of the outcome of his renegotiation. This leads many to
suggest that the entire renegotiation process is a sham.

The
Spectator’s Isabel Hardman asks whether David Cameron
is ‘having a staged row with Donald Tusk?’, while the chief executive of Vote
Leave, Matthew Elliot, is quoted by the Financial
Times saying that Mr Cameron is having ‘a
manufactured row’ with the EU to make his renegotiation ‘sound more significant
than it really is’.

‘…we should be able to prepare a concrete
proposal to be finally adopted in February’

Before he
wrote this in his letter, Mr Tusk had already warned the Prime Minister against
trying to rush his renegotiation at the December European Council. It now looks
quite certain that the British press won’t be getting too excited about Brexit this
side of Christmas.

Edward Aldred has recently graduated from the
University of Oxford, where he studied German. He is currently working as an
intern with Open Europe Berlin.

Donnerstag, 3. Dezember 2015

The European Constitutional
Group has discussed the report of the Five Presidents of the EU institutions
and the suggestions of other European leaders such as President Hollande and
Finance Minister Schäuble.
We have also taken into account the areas recently identified by Prime Minister
Cameron and looked at the UK demands in terms of their broader conformity with
the interests of the EU as a whole. We have developed the ideas first set out in
our "Proposal for a Constitution of Europe" (1993) and applied them
to the current situation. Our main purpose was to discuss how the EU can best
respond to the divisions that now undermine a Union whose basic purpose is to
heal division.

We are especially concerned
about the divisions that stand in the way of cooperative solutions to the
challenges facing the Union today. Some
divisions of course are of long standing. Others have been provoked by recent
actions of the Union itself. In
particular, policies to overcome the sovereign debt crisis have raised doubts
about the rule of law. Further divisions will be stimulated by some of the
proposals being circulated for reform. Proposals to share risks, to introduce a
common tax or to increase tax harmonization are all made in the name of
solidarity. In our view they risk having the opposite effect.

First, current proposals for
reform, especially in the eurozone, shift the emphasis from public goods to
risk sharing. Insurance has benefits but it also has costs, notably in terms of
moral hazard. The costs may easily exceed the benefits. If negligence is to be
avoided, subsidiarity must prevail.

Second, past policies to
overcome the sovereign debt crisis have raised doubts about the extent to which
the rule of law is still respected by the European institutions. We believe
that the Court of Justice has to be reformed and that the citizens and the
national parliaments have to be given more say. The ultimate protection against
a breakdown of the rule of law is the right to withdraw. There ought to be more
room for opt-outs.

Resulting from this discussion,
we have developed two groups of recommendations that are attached to this
letter. First, those addressing the alarming gap that has opened up between the
Union and its citizens. Our recommendations are aimed at reducing the distance
between the EU and its citizens by making possible enhanced direct citizen
participation, by giving greater powers to national parliaments and by placing
the agenda-setting role in the hands of the Member States themselves. Respect
for the rule of law will be enhanced by judicial procedures less prone to
political bias.

The second group of
proposals aims to improve the long term economic growth prospects of the Union.
In this area our proposals aim to improve opportunities for the young, to
reduce inter-generational friction, to reduce the burden on future generations,
to lower costs of doing business in the EU, and to reduce strains on welfare
budgets.

We fully recognize that the
two agendas – the political and the economic – are linked in practice. It would
be a mistake to see hardening political attitudes, growing intolerance and
polarization in the EU as just linked to the financial crisis and poor economic
prospects in the EU. It also is linked to remote, elitist political structures.

We also recognize that,
while some of our recommendations are about better observance of the existing
rules of the EU, and others are about the interpretation of existing Treaty
provisions, there remains a need for fundamental Treaty change, including a
review of the role of the European Court of Justice itself. In our view the
Council of Ministers should appoint an expert group, with a membership entirely
independent of the EU institutions, under your Presidency, to draw up a list of
necessary changes including alternatives. Such a body could report by end 2016.

In our view the
recommendations we attach are vital to heal the divisions within the EU, to
restore fair play and to nourish the reciprocity between Member States that is
essential for the Union to flourish.

1. A qualified minority of
national parliaments should be able to block any new proposed EU measure (issue
a red card) on any grounds including excessive cost or uncertainty of impact.
Their decision shall not be subject to review by the ECJ.

2. The role of the
Commission should be redefined in accordance with a separation of powers. To
this end its quasi-judicial powers (in competition and trade policy) and its
oversight role in relation to fiscal policy should be assigned to independent
bodies; its right of legislative initiative should be re-assigned to the Council
of Ministers and the European Parliament.

3. Disputes involving the
principles of subsidiarity and proportionality shall be decided by a Court of
Review whose members are delegated for a limited period from the highest courts
of the Member States. They will be chosen by lot from those members of the
highest court who have had judicial experience outside the court.

4. In the event of disputes
between members and non-members of the eurozone, any Member State should be
able to bring action against the EU, its institutions and agencies including
any disputes related to the location of service providers. Any such action
shall be arbitrated by a special tribunal whose ruling will be accepted by the
parties as final. The tribunal shall be
composed, on a case by case basis, of a member of a constitutional body of the
member state bringing the action, a member of the ECJ and a chairperson from a
constitutional court of a jurisdiction outside the EU.

5. A qualified group of
citizens in a qualified minority of member states (one percent of the voters in
at least 5 member states) or a qualified minority of the national parliaments
should be enabled to trigger an EU-wide referendum to oppose any EU measure –
including budgetary measures. The referendum shall be supervised by an
independent body that shall determine procedures, qualifying majorities and the
wording of the question. The costs of shall be borne from the EU budget. The
need for greater flexibility in the way that the Union respects the preferences
of its citizens should be recognized in its common provisions (TEU Art.1).

B. MEASURES TO RESTORE
GROWTH AND EMPLOYMENT PROSPECTS.

1. In order to reduce the
costs of doing business in the EU, a qualified minority of national parliaments
of the Member States should be able to propose the revocation of any existing
EU directive or regulation. The proposal should require only a simple majority
for approval in the Council of Ministers. The decision of the Council should
not be subject to review by either the European Parliament or the ECJ.

2. The breach in the Treaty
of the no bail-out provisions (TFEU. Art. 125) must be repaired. Members of the
Eurozone that persistently violate the provisions of the Treaty against
excessive deficit financing (TFEU Art.126) should automatically cease to be
members of the Eurozone without losing their membership in the Union. Member
states that are not members of the Eurozone should be under no obligation to
provide financial support for the zone.

3. The debt reduction necessary
for some member states should involve an orderly resolution process where only
obligations owed to the Bretton Woods institutions are accorded preferred
status.

4. The ECB should stop
buying government bonds. It should not finance government budget deficits.

5. The Union should give
equal recognition (under TEU Art. 4) to currencies of member states other than
the Euro.

6. The Union should not
introduce a tax of its own or intensify tax harmonization as this would
aggravate the burden of taxation.

7. In order to speed up the
negotiations on TTIP the EU should (under Art.218) look to the consent of the
European Parliament on a ‘fast track’ basis involving only the principle of
consent or non consent to the agreement as a whole.

8. In recognition of the
strain on budgets of increased flows of people within the EU and between the EU
and the outside world, any member state should be able to institute a ‘step
–back’ provision to limit flows from whatever source. A step-back procedure
would preserve the principles of the Schengen area, the free movement of people
and non-discrimination on the grounds of nationality, but allow for derogation
at the discretion of the Member State concerned.